Association of apolipoprotein B and incidence of metabolic syndrome in Korean men: a 5-years' follow-up study

Background and objective: There have been reports for the association between elevated serum apolipoprotein B (ApoB) and several cardiometabolic disorders. However, it remains unclear whether serum ApoB level predicts the development of metabolic syndrome (MetS). Accordingly, we carried out a prospective study to evaluate the longitudinal effects of baseline serum ApoB levels on the development of MetS.

Patients and methods: A cohort of 25,193 healthy Korean men without MetS had been followed up prospectively. Baseline serum ApoB levels were categorized to following quintiles (quintile 1-5: <76.4, 76.4-88.4, 88.4-99.5, 99.5-113.0, ≥113.0). We evaluated the differences in the incidence of MetS according to quintiles of serum ApoB levels. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate the adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for MetS.

Results: During follow-up, 5407 (21.5%) cases developed MetS between 2006 and 2010. Incidence of MetS increased according to quintiles of serum ApoB levels [quintile 1-5: 9.1%, 16.4%, 22.1%, 27.3%, 36.4%, respectively (P for trend <0.001)]. Even after adjusting for various covariates including non-HDL-cholesterol, the hazard ratios (95% CI) for MetS increased in proportion to the quintiles of serum ApoB levels, compared to quintile 1 [quintile 2-5: 1.64 (1.43-1.89), 1.98 (1.71-2.31), 2.32 (1.96-2.75) and 2.92 (2.37-3.60), respectively (P for trend <0.001)]. These associations were apparent still in the clinically relevant subgroup analyses.

Conclusions: Serum ApoB levels predict MetS, independent of baseline confounding variables including non-HDL-cholesterol.